Martin rushed forward and used his considerably greater weight to pull Björn away and force him down on to the ground on his stomach. Henrik was still coughing after the vicious blow to his stomach, gasping for breath between coughs. Joel hit him on the head and shook him as he hissed, 'You want to fuck, do you? In that case I think you ought to fuck somebody who wants to be fucked, you bastard.'
He hurled Henrik down on top of Björn. Martin stood on Björn's hands so that he couldn't move.
'There you go, now you can fuck,' screamed Joel; he stood astride Henrik's body, grabbed his hips and pulled backwards, then pushed down again. Henrik tried to wriggle free, but Joel got hold of a stone the size of an egg, and using its extra weight he slammed his fist into the back of Henrik's head.
'Enjoying yourself, are you? Maybe you haven't got it all the way in yet…'
Henrik lay helpless on top of Björn, who was now weeping, and Joel groped around his pale backside to direct him the right way.
'Pack it in Joel, pack it in for fuck's sake!'
Anders let go of Cecilia and went over to the naked bodies, twisted around each other. He said it again. £Joel, pack it in! That's enough!'
When he was a step away, Joel turned his face to him. Saliva was dribbling from the corners of his mouth. His eyes were inhuman and expressed only one simple emotion: Touch me and I'll kill you. Joel raised the hand holding the stone ready to strike, and Anders backed down. The nausea rose from his stomach he stepped back. And turned away.
The others stood as if paralysed, following the drama with eyes wide open. Only Elin's face betrayed anything other than incredulous horror. She was smiling. A stiff smile curled her lips, and her eyes were…avid. Behind him Anders could hear Joel struggling with Henrik, unable to achieve the result he desired. Perhaps the humiliation had finally forced the guilty erection to subside.
Björn was weeping in despair, howling like a whipped animal. Joel panted and swore, but finally gave up. He turned away from the bodies on the ground and spat. As he walked past the remains of the fire he kicked a few glowing embers over Henrik's back with his bare foot.
Henrik jerked and rolled off Björn. Joel went into the boathouse, and after a few seconds he was back with a bottle of Bacardi. His eyes were still hazy, flickering with excitement, and Anders noticed that the fight and the punishment had given him a hard-on. The scrap of fishing net was draped over his cock as if it had been hung out to dry.
He walked up to Elin, grabbed her hand and said, 'You and I are going to have a little chat.'
Elin went with him. The half-finished fishing net sarong trailed after her like a bridal veil as they went around the corner of the boat- house and disappeared into the forest.
There was silence now. Martin had stepped off Björn's hands a long time ago, and now looked guilty as he stood there gazing down at the huddled, weeping boy. He glanced around as if he hoped someone might tell him why he had done it. Everyone was avoiding each other's eyes.
Cecilia went into the boathouse and dug out Henrik and Björn's clothes. By that stage they could hear noises from the forest, where Joel was either taking or being given his reward. From the sounds Elin was making, it sounded as though it was more a case of the latter. Samuel went inside and turned up the music.
The tape had gone back to the beginning, and Henrik and Björn were slowly pulling on their clothes to the sound of the fanfare from 'The Final Countdown'. Anders would never be able to hear that song again without a flush of guilt.
He saw Björn's face, wet with tears, his slender, trembling hands pulling on the ugly underpants, he remembered the snow fortresses they had built together and the chocolate Björn's mother had given them, the children's programs they had watched and the things they had laughed at. He wished he had picked up a bigger stone and thrown it at Joel's head.
But he hadn't, and now Björn was weeping even more violently as he discovered that his Morrissey-glasses were snapped in the middle.
Anders went over to him, crouched down and said, 'Are you OK?'
Björn's hand shot out and hit him on the forehead. Not hard, but enough to make the point. He didn't want anyone to look at him or speak to him. After a couple of minutes Henrik and Björn were dressed and set off along the shoreline, past the boats.
Later on Anders found out they had swum across to Kattudden.
The final week of that summer passed in a state not unlike a hangover. Once the real hangover after the party in the boathouse had gone, everyone still talked more quietly than usual, laughed less often, and went around with a gnawing little pain. Except for Joel and Elin.
They had finally found each other seriously, and wanted to show off that fact. They crashed about paying no heed to anyone else, and gathered people together mainly so that they could have an audience as they groped each other. This might possibly have been their way of dealing with their feelings of guilt, but nobody took it that way. It was hard work, mostly. A couple of times Joel gave Elin a slap as a kind of joke, and it is possible that his later career as an abuser of women started that very summer.
Nothing was heard of Henrik and Björn, nor did anyone seek them out. Their exclusion from the gang was something that had been coming for several years, and now it was a fact. It hadn't really been a banishment as such, it was more that the gang had spat them out. It was a shame, but there was nothing to be done about it.
The day before Anders was due to go back to the city, he went over to Henrik's cottage anyway. As he approached the door he could hear the music from inside, 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out'. He knocked.
The music was turned off and Henrik opened the door. He looked just the same as always, except that he had more pimples than before. Anders could see a pile of chocolate biscuit wrappers on the floor inside. Henrik made no move to let him in.
'Hi,' said Anders. 'I just…I'm going home tomorrow, so I…1 just thought I'd say goodbye.'
A bitter smile distorted Henrik's mouth. When Anders didn't say or do anything else, the smile disappeared, and for a couple of seconds Henrik's face was naked.
'I didn't do it,' he said. 'Just so you know. I didn't do it. I just… it was nothing. I brushed against her. And she started screaming.' Henrik fixed his naked gaze on Anders' eyes. 'Do you believe me?'
Anders nodded. 'Yes.'
'Good.' Henrik's face closed down again, that smile came back. He said, 'In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you more.'
Anders realised this was a quote, but couldn't place it, so he simply said, 'Mm.'
'Bye then,' said Henrik, and closed the door.
The following summer the gang had begun to break up from the inside. Someone had gone on an InterRail trip, some had got summer jobs. Henrik and Björn could be seen riding around on the moped, and Anders was the only one who acknowledged them with a nod, but they never stopped to talk.
Strange things had begun to happen in the village. Things disappeared and turned up somewhere else. The notice board outside the shop was pulled down, and one morning a summer visitor who was going for a swim made a horrible discovery. From the lower branch of the pine tree next to the changing room a swan was dangling, hanged by the neck with a steel wire.
Another summer visitor who had three rabbits in a large hutch came out one morning and found them all dead. The only living thing inside the hutch was a neighbour's famously bad-tempered bulldog. There was nothing to indicate that the dog had dug its way in. It had been taken off its leash and placed inside the hutch.
Suspicion soon fell on Henrik and Björn. They rode around the village generally behaving oddly and negatively. Viciously, you could even say. They were taken to task here and there, but simply denied everything. Since nothing could be proved, nothing could be done. But people started to lock up their possessions and their animals.